


old love, old flame

by kinpika



Series: lyrium high [8]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: It's been ten years since they last saw each other, Past Relationship(s), here meet ur daughter kind of way too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-03
Updated: 2017-12-03
Packaged: 2019-02-10 00:30:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12900117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kinpika/pseuds/kinpika
Summary: Twenty years on, and Tarquin knew she hadn't changed.





	old love, old flame

For certain, Tarquin could not say how long it had been since he had felt such a still warmth in Skyhold. But down the rolling hills children went, laughter so infectious it had many others follow suit. At the centre of it all sat the Lady Amell, feet curled under her, book in hand, every bit the picture of a perfectly raised woman. Before her, a small boy held up a crown of daisies, and she took it graciously, kissing the boy on the cheek before he ran off once more. 

Tarquin smiled as he took each step towards her. She hadn’t changed, in all the years he had not seen her. Since the day she had returned to the Tower, saving all their lives, he had felt that change, a subtle shift in the world. But Basilia was immovable, unbreakable. Children at her side, with their dark hair and startling eyes, but nothing changed.

“My lady,” he greets, and no matter how many years it had been, when Basilia would turn those eyes on him, everything in him simply went away. Motioning to the spot beside her, she nods in turn, and he sits; a time old tradition. 

Eyes scope the layout of her skin, how scars litter cheeks, she was lined but it simply added charm, and those particular moles mapped out like they led to something. Tarquin remembered telling her that once, when they were tucked away in a corner of the library. Huddled together, skirts over hips, and he had told her she carried the stars with her. 

“What are you staring at?” Basilia’s voice carries an accent now that tells of years abroad in Antiva. But her voice had never been a thing he could remember distinctly. After all, she sang in Rivaini to the children of the Tower, spoke harshly in Tevene when casting, and laughed drunkenly in Fereldan late at night. 

“You’re still as beautiful as ever.” Admission, easier now than was possible more than twenty years ago. Perhaps she was still not used to compliments — ah, her cheeks coloured. Under all the silks and perfumes and gold, she was still _her_.

“Why, Ser Wolfe, I believe you’re flirting with me.” She swats his arm gently, and Tarquin laughs. No time had passed, and yet decades had.

“Only stating the truth, my lady. The last few years have been kind to you.”

Basilia smiles, careful and concealed, no show of teeth. “As they have been to you. I’ve seen many a woman scouting you out as you walk by.”

His turn to blush at such a sentiment. Whilst the templars no longer owned him, it was still such a strange thing to consider. To settle down, to own his name and land. Once, he had imagined it childishly with this woman. But what he knew, what she had taught him even back then, was present on her. Swirls of ink sat on her skin, sinking below material that told stories he would not be privy to see. In one ear, a large jewel sat, and on her finger a simple band. Traditional methods for different places. If Tarquin was younger, he would have commented how she wore her hair back now, no longer loose and in front, but held his tongue.

“Current situation aside, one day it may be possible. But, not now.”

Basilia raises a brow, carefully and artfully. Tarquin hadn’t broken down that wall yet, but parts were beginning to show through. When she had returned to the Circle, amidst the bloodbath that was Uldred’s work, she had stopped to heal him. To save him. At that moment, Tarquin had understood what it meant to fall in love with someone all over again, doubly so for someone he was never meant to have in the first place, at all.

Perhaps, with the way she inhales, she was remembering that moment too. “Do you remember the Circle? Our time together?”

“I will forever cherish it.” And he means that, from the bottom of his heart. 

She smiles, sadly now, eyes aimed towards the ground. Tarquin lets her go, for one moment, and watches as children run past, yelling, waving wooden swords as they went. Little ones, younger, with their legs unable to carry them as fast, struggled to keep up. Amongst them was a little girl, who was the spit of her mother, but her eyes flashed colours like stained glass in church as the sun rose. 

Made him wonder just how her life had progressed since they once were. Neither of them were bound by laws of the Chantry, able to be their own people, have their own independence. Tarquin didn’t know the inner workings of just what her business was, and he still didn’t know his own place in this world, but he watched Basilia’s children run by. 

And he was too busy, watching in amusement as there was some sort of reenactment of a particular battle that was probably told out of proportion, that Tarquin didn’t notice the shadow until it was too late. 

Before them stands a young woman, proud and tall. Every inch Basilia, were someone not to look at her face, and see how her nose was different, how her eyes were a rounder shape. Most were taken aback but just how vivid colour stood out on an Amell’s face (and Tarquin had met quite a few Amell women in his life), but this woman was more than her mother. 

Whoever her father may be, he had left a mark in the world in how this young woman’s face contorted as her thoughts showed on her face.

Pushing himself up to stand, Tarquin bows first to the woman, and then offers his hand to Basilia. She takes it, easing up off the ground so delicately that the differences in the two of them were like night and day. “My lady,” he says once more, as if it was his cue to leave. Staring back into his own eyes was unsettling, but Basilia had promised him that she had found her. 

“Myra, this is Ser Tarquin Wolfe. Former Knight-Captain of Ferelden’s Circle, now an esteemed lord in the Ferelden court. He assists with Gwaren from time to time.”

The woman, Myra, gives a quick curtsey, if only because of a look her mother gives. Tarquin can only repeat how the name sounded lovely, and that it was a good choice to leave the naming to Basilia. Likely named for a woman from a historic book who was in so and so battle, as Tarquin tried to remember if there was a significance. Every name had a significance to Basilia, after all.

Myra looked up and down, sizing and determining, and for what Tarquin could not say. But if she was anything like her mother, she would be quick, and figure out what was happening. Who he was. What he used to be to her mother.

At Myra’s hip was a sword, plain and not as decorated as some of the soldiers who had arrived with Basilia carried. Perhaps it was to train with, or something that had been picked up on the road, Tarquin couldn’t say. Strange that any child of theirs would lack magic (and saying ‘their child’ was just as startling). Which led to at least two conclusions: she was being made to train, and was indeed a mage, or they had committed this girl to the chantry young.

“I see you carry a sword. Are you able to wield it?”

Perhaps she hadn’t expected to be addressed, because Myra stumbles a little on the hill. Basilia holds her by the arm, and she’s not shaken off, just looking anywhere but at him. “Only a little. Mother thought it prudent I ‘expand my horizons’.” 

Basilia’s voice is soothing, as she smiles so proudly at Myra. “I didn’t learn how to wield a sword until a few years ago either, my love. You’ll learn.”

“Mother, you had the spirit of an ancient elven knight give you knowledge. You _cheated_.” And there was such petulance in the word, it took the both of them back. 

But Tarquin can’t hold a disinterested look, as he can feel a grin upon his face, and gives Basilia a very pointed look. “That is like you. More than twenty years, and you haven’t changed at all.”

At the annoyed look Basilia gave him, it was like something dawned on Myra. Be it some common history, or that her mother had a habit of finding an easier route most of the time, Tarquin would never know, but there was also a happiness in her eye. “Does this mean Ser Wolfe knows what you were like in the Circle? And that he would be happy to disclose any information, perhaps?”

Chuckling, Tarquin waves off any concern that Basilia went to voice. “At the cost of irritating your mother, my lady, I will have to decline such conversations. However, I can give you some pointers with your sword… and should anything be said then, who knows.”

“Maker’s balls, Tarquin.”

Basilia doesn’t stop him, despite the protest and arms crossed over her chest. If anything, she was open to such a topic. Myra walks ahead, towards the training areas put aside for soldiers, and Tarquin goes to take his leave, when Basilia catches his arm. Looking at her fingers, before following arm, to shoulder, to neck, and slowly up to her eyes, Tarquin isn’t sure what to make of the expression on her face.

“You know, that’s the first time she’s called me ‘mother’,” Basilia says, quietly, voice laced with absolute awe and happiness. “She’s never really… spoken to me.”

“When did you find her?”

“She was the last one. Barely a year ago. She hates her magic, Tarquin. I can’t imagine a life like that.”

Gently, Tarquin pats the hand still holding him, before prying it off. Kissing her knuckles, he bows deep, respectfully. “She’s scared, and thought she was alone for far too long. But she has you now, and that’s what matters.”

At that, Tarquin turns, just catching the ‘and you. Thank you’ sent his way. 

“Anything for you, my lady.”

**Author's Note:**

> at one point tarquin was just some name holder for a random warden in some rly old fics, but i got kinda attached to him. now he's a baby daddy. what character development.


End file.
